Fundraising on Facebook

Facebook recently launched Facebook Fundraisers, which enable individuals to solicit donations from their friend networks on behalf of causes they support. The tool is available to any US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and it’s natively integrated into Facebook. Sounds like a win for an organization looking to expand its peer-to-peer fundraising efforts, right? Maybe not, if you dig a little deeper.

No Event Trackback

One major drawback of Facebook Fundraisers is that donations can’t be traced back to the participant whose donation is made on behalf of or the event program it’s supporting. The supporter who asked for the donation on Facebook is not notified which friends are donating, and those friends must proactively opt in to share their email addresses with the recipient organization. Furthermore, Facebook distributes the total amount raised to the organization as an uncategorized lump sum. If the donor made a donation on behalf of a P2P participant, the donor intent is not captured — so the funds are sent to the general nonprofit fund rather than on behalf of the participant and this particular event program. This can make thanking, segmenting and retargeting donors next to impossible.

Payment Delays

Facebook payouts of donations raised through Facebook Fundraisers can take anywhere from two weeks to two months to reach the organization. A nonprofit registered with Facebook Payments will also have to wait until donations exceed $100 to receive any payout. That may be a hardship for many small nonprofits that depend on P2P fundraising.

Transaction Fees

Depending on how an organization has set up its Facebook account, it will pay at least a 5% transaction fee on all donations to cover things like fraud protection and payment processing. Donations to nonprofits not signed up for Facebook Payments will incur an additional 3.5% fee to cover credit card processing plus 2.25% to cover operational costs for Facebook’s charity partner. These fees detract from the revenue needed for important programs.

Is There a Better Way?

While Facebook’s tools are convenient and simple, they are lacking in some key features. You may find that Charity Dynamics’ Boundless Fundraising™ app, which also seamlessly integrates with Facebook, is a better choice for your organization.

Like Facebook’s tools, Boundless Fundraising™ allows your constituents to broaden their engagement with your mission by extending their fundraising efforts to their social media connections. Like Facebook’s tools, the app does so by encouraging involvement via donation and registration links on users’ newsfeeds.

However, the app allows supporters to engage more deeply in P2P fundraising activities. It gives supporters the option to update their profile or cover photos to match the organization they want to support. It provides a progress meters that shows progress toward the supporter’s donation goal, and it allows supporters to thank their individual donors directly on Facebook or via email. All donations are processed directly on the organization’s event website with unique source coding. This allows the organization to have a centralized data hub for all transaction processing and ability to run reports for events, participants and teams.

The Boundless Fundraising™ app also allows nonprofits to take a more active role in this P2P fundraising. Instead of waiting to passively receive funds, the organization can use the contact and donation information provided by the app to honor and contact donors further.

Want to learn more about effective fundraising on Facebook with the Boundless Fundraising application? Attend an upcoming demo, or contact us to discuss your needs.